Title: By Her Side, Mulder's story
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 1998
From: Vickie Moseley vickiemoseley1978@yahoo.com
Summary: By popular demand, Mulder gives his thoughts as he
recovers from a gun shot wound to the chest.
Same disclaimer as the other parts of the series
By Her Side: Mulder Speaks
by Vickie Moseley
There's a noise.
It's not my alarm clock. It's too slow. It's steady and sort of loud
right by my ear and I remember that I distinctly despise that sound
and what it represents.
Skinner's voice on the phone?
No, that's not it.
My head feels really fuzzy. Like I've finished off that bottle of Old
Overholt that's been collecting dust in the back of my kitchen
cupboard.
No, that's not right, either.
Like . . . like when I wake up after . . .
Shit.
Now I remember that sound. It's a heart monitor.
Goddammit all to hell.
I thought I got _out_ of the hospital!
Shit. I wish I could think. I wish I could remember how I managed
to get back in the hospital. I remember being here before. I
remember waking up and seeing none other than Bill Scully, Jr.
standing over me with this really shit eating grin on his face.
I remember thinking hell was supposed to be a _lot_ hotter. And
not so many bright lights.
But that was a long time ago. I got better. I remember that, too. I
even got so I could walk a few steps without keeling over and I
made the doctors mad enough that they agreed to send me home.
Oh, shit.
Now it's coming back to me. I didn't get to 'go home'. I got to go
to Scully's brother's house. Bill and Tara.
There's something about 'beer' in here somewhere.
Fuck it. I'm too tired to think about it right now. I think I'll sort
of lie here and fall back into that nice little dreamless buzz world
that is mine to inhabit when ever I really do myself damage.
Except, there's that other noise.
This one is not mechanical. It's entirely organic. Actually, it's
human.
It's a sigh.
Scully's sigh.
I might not have all my faculties about me yet, but I do remember
Scully was royally pissed at me the last time I was awake.
It had something to do with that beer I mentioned earlier. And
somehow, Bill Scully was involved. I'm not really good on the
details at the moment, but I have a pretty good idea that Scully is
still pissed at me. Whatever I did, I probably deserve her wrath. I
almost always do.
I could just go back to sleep. But that's the coward's way out.
Not that I haven't taken it before. Plenty of times. I did it the first
time after Ellen's Airbase. Just sort of fazed out on her in the car.
I wasn't really unconscious, but it sure seemed like a nice place to
be. And she left me alone. Well, until she found a hospital and
emergency room and there were all those nice, sterile needles going
to waste.
But I'm getting too old for that game.
Of course, opening my eyes is always the greatest challenge at a
time like this.
After a few tries, and considerable internal straining on my part, my
eyelids come unglued and I blink into the way too bright light
coming from the window next to my bed.
Hey, I'm not in ICU!
What a nice surprise. But all the effort with my eyelids proved to
be futile, since I'm facing away from where those sighs are coming.
Turn the head. Just . . . a . . . bit . . . and There! Made it.
C'mon, Scully. Look at me. I would love to call out to you, but
I'm a little tuckered out at the moment.
I stare at her a little while. Finally, she turns her head just a fraction
and she sees me.
"Hey."
The smile. I live for that smile. I do, seriously. There have been
lots of times when the darkness was a lot more inviting than the
cold, bright light of living that I knew I'd have to face. But that
smile. I knew I'd miss the smile Scully gives me every single time I
wake up like this.
"H-h-hey-y-y," I crackle back. Ouch. I really detest what drugs
and pain do to my voice. From the soreness in my throat, I think I
just missed experiencing my favorite torture device: the respirator.
Thank you, whoever is listening for letting me sleep through that.
"Here, just a sip." Scully's holding a styrofoam cup with a straw to
my mouth. Water. Will wonders never cease. This must be just
for observation, first no ICU, now water. I might get out of here
by tonight, if I piss off the right people.
The water is doing wonders, but Scully yanks the straw away too
fast.
"Not so much, Mulder. We don't want a repeat of Bethesda, now
do we?"
Why does she always have to remind me of that? One lousy time, I
wake up puking after I was dying on an abandoned and rusting
USS Ardent in the North Sea. I don't know what the hell those
Navy docs were pumping into me, but I was puking my guts up for
days. So now, no matter what the circumstances, Scully takes the
opportunity to remind me. It never fails to make my stomach do at
least a three-quarter turn. I give her a sour look, but when I
swallow this time, it doesn't feel like my throat is rubbing against
itself.
"Where am I?"
"San Diego Naval Base Hospital. We brought you here last night.
You were coughing up blood in Bill and Tara's bathroom."
Oh, yeah. Now I remember. Yuck.
"You had popped some stitches when you were throwing up."
Oh shit. Now the beer is becoming all too clear to the picture.
Four of them. Not Rolling Rock. I think it was Bud Light, and I
usually don't bother if that's all that's being served, but for some
reason I did. Probably not the best idea I've had.
"Scully, about the beer . . ."
She holds up her hand to stop me. "As much as I'd love to blame
the beer, that wasn't the problem. You had a reaction to the
antibiotic they send home with you. Not that the alcohol in your
system helped matters . . ."
"Would it make you feel better if I told you about my headache and
I swear never to do that again?" When in doubt, go for the
sympathy vote.
She tries so hard to hide those little smiles, but I can see them in her
eyes. "No, Mulder, it wouldn't make me feel better. But you are
_never_ to do that again. It masked the symptoms of the reaction,
for one. And it made it pretty dicey when they had to put you
under again to stitch you back up."
She's rubbing my hand. Right under where the IV needle is taped
down. That always gets sore, that little patch of skin, and Scully
instinctively knows how to make it feel better. She's always known
how to make me feel better.
"So, what on earth caused you to consume four beers in two hours?
And don't tell me it was the game, I heard the sports reporters
snoring while we were in the car coming home."
Geez. Two 'Scully Investigations' in one night? Or at least one
twenty-four hour period, since I'm pretty sure it's not night any
more. I don't know if I can handle it. I think it's time to feign
some exhaustion, which isn't that far of a stretch right now.
"I'm really tired, Scully. Can I sleep? Please?"
If I work at it, I can get a really sleepy look to my eyes. But then,
with 'good' drugs in my veins, I really don't even have to try. It
just comes naturally. And I'm pretty sure it's working, by the look
Scully's giving me.
"I know you are. You've had a rough week. Why don't you take a
nap. I'll be here when you wake up."
Oh. And she'll have had all that time to come up with new and
better methods of interrogation. Maybe this isn't the best
approach. Maybe I should just tough it out now and if the road
gets too rocky, I'll really need that nap.
"Bill and I were just talking. I asked him for a beer and he got me
one. He tried to talk me out of it, by the way, but I sort of forced
the issue. I mean, it's not his fault, all of this. Really."
I wonder if she notices that I'm actually defending her asshole
brother who would like nothing better on most occasions than to
tear me limb from limb. The drugs might be working against me at
this point.
A raised eyebrow. Pursed lips. Oh, shit, she notices. I'm dead.
"So you and Bill were just talking. Just a couple of guys and a ball
game and a few beers, huh? Gee, Mulder, if I didn't know better,
I'd say you two were old pals."
Scully, please, I'm in pain here. I'm on drugs here. Don't do this.
Not that it would stop her. I mean, if I were really in danger, she
would never press the point. But it's all too obvious that I'm out of
the woods, so to speak and now she wants what's coming to her:
an explanation.
"The game was boring. You said so yourself."
"So . . . what? You decided to have a beer chugging contest to
while away the hours?"
She crosses her arms. I'm in deep.
"What were you talking about that required you to be
'anesthstized', Mulder? What on earth did he ask you?"
I have a big confession to make. I can't lie to Scully. I haven't
been able to for a long time, probably all the time I've known her. I
can hide things from her, distract her, sometimes I can even lead her
away from topics of conversation if I think they're going to be
dangerous. But I just can't lie. Especially not when I'm on the
good stuff and she's got my hand and she's rubbing that little patch
of skin . . .
"He wanted to know if we were, ah, . . . you know. Doing 'it'."
"Sleeping together?"
Duh! "Yeah."
"And you told him . . .?"
"The truth! What do you think, Scully? I'm gonna tell the guy that
we're screwin' like bunnies when we've never laid a hand on each
other? Give me a break!"
"And that made Bill happy? I mean, he was satisfied with that
answer?"
"Sort of." The words just slip out of my mouth. Stupid drugs!
"He wasn't entirely satisfied with the answer?" When you don't
get the answer you want, rephrase the question. Shit, and to think
_I_ taught her how to do that.
"Well, he wanted to know . . . if I'm gay."
To my joy and her credit, Scully smirks at that. "I'm surprised he
didn't ask if _I_ was gay, too."
"He did." Oh, shit. I really didn't mean to say that.
Narrowed eyes, the little ridge between her nose is more
pronounced. Is there any way I can warn Bill off before he steps
into this minefield? Hey, this guy has spent a long time making my
life hell. Why should I warn him?
"He asked if I'm gay."
Not a question mark in sight. I am sleepy, I am really, really sleepy.
Just pass out right now and it will all go away. But I can't. Now,
I'm too nervous to sleep.
"So, Mulder. What did you say?"
When did life get so complicated? "I told him to ask you."
A look passes on her face and for a moment, I think that maybe
she's a little hurt that I didn't defend her sexual honor or
something. Then, Scully the Warrior Princess comes forward and
decides I can live. I felt the wind from that one.
"Anything else? Any other little tours through our private lives
you'd like to tell me about?"
"He wanted to know . . ." I stop myself just before I enter into the
whole discussion of Emily. Don't go there, don't ever go there.
So I quickly come up with something else. "He wanted to know
who Ed Jerse was and if he should go beat the shit out of him."
Score one for the home team! Now it's her turn to look flustered.
Time to press the advantage.
"Where did he hear about Jerse from, Scully? I know I sure as hell
never mentioned him."
OK, this is mean. But dammit, she's been picking on me. I know
full well that she mentioned Jerse in a fit of . . . something. That
she said it to convince me not to die in her lap. But it's sort of
interesting to me that she would use him in that manner. This is a
little explanation I think she owes _me_.
She's getting that flush to her cheeks and she won't look me in the
eye.
"Scully."
"You need your rest, Mulder. Take a nap."
"Running away, Scully? It's not like I can come after you or
anything."
continued in Scully's story
Vickie
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Donna: Where does Disco come from?
John: Hell. And not the really cool part of hell with
all the murderers. It comes from the lame part of hell
with all the bad accountants.
That 70's Show
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